Now that the Christmas season is here, scammers are out in full force.
As Bankrate.com notes, these ne’r-do-wells can prey on your desire to buy anything from a puppy to the latest toy craze. They can make you think your undelivered package is tied up and you need to supply personal information, or they can imitate your bank or a government official. Because 42% of you will buy things online this season and 54% will make at least one impulse purchase, many people are vulnerable unless their guard is permanently up.
Meet Daisy
For this reason, Britain’s newest scam fighter seems like such an effective and, let’s face it, deliciously rewarding way to fight back. As CBS News reported, a British phone company has created an AI grandmother called Daisy. She is specially programmed to take calls from scammers and to keep them occupied for as long as possible, “frustrating them with her tech-illiteracy and wasting their time by telling irrelevant stories about her grandchildren.”
Daisy debuted on Nov. 14, and so far she has kept more than 1,000 scammers running in circles, with the longest call lasting about 40 minutes. She does not exist in the U.S., unfortunately.
Daisy is built around a stereotype, a doddering elderly person who is particularly vulnerable to online predators. But in truth, all ages are vulnerable. The most sophisticated scammers can clone voices to convince people they are a victim’s relative, or make actual phone numbers and names of government officials appear on caller I.D. screens. They will use any hook necessary to grab a victim.
An elaborate hoax
Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary told a story this week about a woman who was tricked into believing the FBI needed her as an “asset” to capture members of a notorious fentanyl smuggling ring. She was told the bad guys had used her Social Security number to open several bank accounts. The caller I.D. showed an actual FBI number. The emails she received were from an address that mimicked an actual agent’s name, and they contained an official FBI seal.
Had she been just a bit more sophisticated, she might have noticed that the email address ended in .com, rather than the .gov that federal agents normally use. But that requires a level of knowledge that seems unreasonable to expect from average people.
The elaborate hoax went on for weeks and included case numbers and a code word she could use to identify herself. She looked up the phone number and name of the “agent,” and they seemed to check out.
In the end, Singletary reported, the woman lost $595,000.
As Chip Kohlweiler, senior vice president of security at Navy Federal Credit Union, told Bankrate, “The fraudsters figure out what works, and then they become a machine until somebody stops it.” Right now, impersonating government officials or law enforcement seems to be effective.
How to avoid becoming a victim
Bankrate has a list of ways to keep yourself from becoming a victim.
The first is to use common sense. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. This includes unusually low discount prices and limited-time offers for popular items. “Take the time to investigate whether it’s a reputable site or seller.”
Don’t click on links, whether they come from emails, texts or ads. Get out of whatever program you’re using and go straight to the website or app associated with the retailer or bank in question.
If you have a bad feeling about a seller, site or government official, trust your instincts. Exit and go to trusted sites instead. Find independent ways to verify information.
Ask a trusted friend who isn’t emotionally invested in the purchase decision for his or her opinion.
Research in advance how to handle credit card fraud if it occurs to you. “Many cards offer zero-liability fraud protection, and the Fair Credit Billing Act allows you to dispute credit card errors,” Bankrate said.
Above all, do not give personal information to people you don’t know.
Cyber criminals can be maddeningly difficult to detect. They appear and disappear. They change shapes and identities. They know how to flatter and how to alarm, and they want to destroy your Christmas.
But they don’t have to succeed.